Marlies Shine Saturday to Split Weekend Series

Game Recap

The Toronto Marlies exploded for eight goals on Saturday night, taking the second game of back-to-back contests in Belleville and splitting the weekend series against the Senators.

The scoring didn’t start until there were under four minutes remaining in the opening frame, but Josh Jooris found himself at the top of the crease, put away the loose puck for the game’s opening goal and opened the floodgates. Colin Greening and Griffen Molino had assists.

The 2-0 lead would hold at the intermission and well into the second, when Chris Mueller made it a 3-0 game with a tip off a Timothy Liljegren one-timer. Dmytro Timashov had the other helper on the goal.

Belleville cut the lead to 3-1 less than two minutes later, but the Marlies reclaimed their three-goal advantage late in the second when Jordan Subban skated in from the point and scored on a shot from the top of the circle. Greening had his second assist of the night on the goal while Andreas Borgman picked up the other.

Josh Jooris opened the scoring at 16:17 of the first period. Jooris has four points (3 goals, 1 assist) in 12 games this season.

Carl Grundstrom scored at 16:42 of the first period and at 1:45 of the third period. Grundstrom has 11 points (5 goals, 6 assists) in 10 games this season.

Chris Mueller scored at 7:53 of the second period. Mueller has 11 points (4 goals, 7 assists) in 10 games this season. He has recorded a point in each game this season except one.

Jordan Subban scored 16:02 of the second period on the power play. Subban has seven points (2 goals, 5 assists) in 11 games this season.

Sam Gagner scored at 8:45 of the third period and earlier added the primary assist on Grundstrom’s first period goal. Gagner has 12 points (6 goals, 6 assists) in 12 games this season and is tied for team lead.

Mason Marchment scored at 9:29 of the third period and earlier added the primary assist on Grundstrom’s third period goal. Marchment has recorded six points (4 goals, 2 assists) in his last four games, including three goals in two games against Belleville.

Adam Cracknell scored at 12:12 of the third period and earlier added the secondary assist on Grundstrom’s third period goal. This was Cracknell’s 150th professional goal. Cracknell has recorded four points (1 goal, 3 assists) in his last three games.

Colin Greening recorded the primary assist on Jooris’ first period goal and the secondary assist on Subban’s second period power play goal.

Griffen Molino registered the secondary assist on Jooris’ first period goal.

Calle Rosen recorded the secondary assist on Grundstrom’s first period goal and the primary assist on Marchment’s third period goal. Rosen leads the Marlies in assists (11).

Timothy Liljegren registered the primary assist on Mueller’s second period goal. Liljegren has four points (1 goal, 3 assists) in his last three games.

Dmytro Timashov had the secondary assist on Mueller’s second period goal. Timashov has nine points (4 goals, 5 assists) in 12 games this season, including four points (2 goals, 2 assists) in his last three games.

Andreas Borgman recorded the primary assist on Subban’s second period power play goal. Borgman has recorded a point (1 goal, 4 assists) in four consecutive games.

Jeremy Bracco had the lone assist on Gagner’s third period goal. Bracco has recorded four assists in his last three games.

Eamon McAdam stopped 23 of 25 shots in his first start for the Toronto Marlies. McAdam is now 1-0-0-1 on the season with a .938 Save Percentage and a 1.74 Goals Against Average.

NOTABLES

Toronto’s two goals in the first period (Jooris and Grundstrom) are the two fastest scored this season (25 seconds).

Toronto went 2-for-3 on the penalty kill and 2-for-6 on the power play.

Toronto had a 41-25 edge in shots in all situations.

Sam Gagner led the Marlies with eight shots on goal.

The Marlies are 4-5-0-2 against North Division opponents and are 1-1-0-0 against the Belleville Senators this season.

The Toronto Marlies are on their annual Royal Road Trip where they will play five games from November 2 to 16 as Coca-Cola Coliseum hosts the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair.

On tonight’s game as a response from last night’s:
When you come into a back-to-back game like this coming off of yesterday, what you’re looking for is exactly that response. You want to make sure that the guys come out and send a message that they care about what happened the night before, they want to be better. We challenged them a little bit here coming into the game and they responded so it was a great effort from our team from start to finish.

On Timothy Liljegren’s offensive play:
That’s what he can do. We had the expectation that he would evolve to settle down a little bit as he gets comfortable in the league and gets more opportunity to be able to do those types of things. I just thought he had a sound game. Maybe his best of the season on both sides of the puck today. Very good for him and as I said, the defence as a group had a good game.

On the final minutes of the game:
They’re upset that in an 8-2 game like that that we’d put our top power play unit like that – understandably so. But we felt it was important to make it clear that the reason for that was we’re not going to sit idly by when I feel they go out and in my opinion, seek to injure one of our players. It was a needless play. On that type of penalty, I don’t think it makes any sense for us to keep our top power play people off the ice. We’ve earned the opportunity to have the lead. If they take a hooking or tripping penalty, you’re never going to see our top unit out there in that type of game. I think my time in the league can speak to that. I feel like that’s our only response we can have for something like that, to send a little bit of a message but it is what it is and we’ll move on.

On Adam Brooks:
He’s out tonight. He had some issues yesterday related to his heart and his heart rate. They just wanted to be more cautious than anything. He’s going to be evaluated back in Toronto and get sorted out exactly what is happening there. He’s going to be out for a little bit until we get that sorted.

Game Preview

The Toronto Marlies (4-5-0-2) and Belleville Senators (6-7-0-0) will face off for a second straight game on Saturday, following Friday’s thrilling 7-6 final.

A late goal gave the Senators the win last night but the Marlies are looking to split the weekend series with a win tonight.

Mason Marchment scored a pair of goals last night, while a number of Marlies blueliners jumped onto the attack with Timothy Liljegren, Frank Corrado and Andreas Borgman all finding the scoresheet.

It was the second straight 7-6 loss for the Marlies, who have a total of 47 goals on the season so far.

Limiting opposition chances will be a major focus tonight as the Marlies look to keep the Senators scoring to a minimum.

Trevor Moore continues to lead Toronto in scoring with 11 points (8G, 3A) on the year and is followed closely by Calle Rosen (1G, 10A), Sam Gagner (5G, 5A) and Chris Mueller (3G, 7A) who all have 10 points.

Belleville’s offence is led by rookie Drake Batherson, who recorded five points in Friday’s game, and now has 19 on the season.

Puck drop is set for 7:00 from the CAA Arena and fans can catch all the action on AHLTV.

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